Visiting Vantage Film

In the middle ages, the “Golden Street” was a major road between Paris and Prague, by way of Nurnberg. One of the major stops was Weiden–home of Vantage Film. That’s apt, since Vantage has offices in Prague and Paris, with headquarters in Weiden–about 2 hours north of Munich, 2 hours west of Prague, 3 hours south of Berlin.

Albert Rath, Vantage lens technician, picked me up in Munich on Wednesday for a visit to Vantage. In the back seat was a large box with a Cooke logo, “The Cooke Look” printing, and a brand new set of Cooke Panchro/i primes inside. It was going to be a busy lens day.

Also converging on Weiden were Gerhard Baier of Leica CW Sonderoptic and Rainer Hercher of Band Pro to deliver Vantage’s new set of Leica Summilux-C cine lenses. Did I mention in an earlier post that it felt like the floodgates of Leica had opened?

Peter Martin and Wolfgang Baumler are the owners of Vantage and have hands-on practical ideas on packing equipment cases. After all, they both began as camera assistants and cinematographers, so they know a thing or two about protecting, organizing and streamlining tasks. Most of the Vantage cases are made by A&J in Los Angeles. They are light enough to be comfortably carried by normal camera crews–not just body-builders. See the pictures above. Click on any thumbnail to see caption.

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